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Show PVthe story or the first PisiraEKrVxtyz ' VfaZ . BY THE PRESmENT . jtoP Installment 6 At last, In 1758, the end came, when William Pitt thrust smaller men aside and became prime minister in England. Eng-land. Amherst took LouiBbourg, Wolfe came to Quebec and General Forbes, that stout and steady soldier, was sent to Virginia to go against Du-quesne. Du-quesne. The advance was slow to exasperation In the view of every ardent ard-ent man like Washington, and cautious cau-tious almost to timidity; but the very delay redounded to its success at last. Home for the Winter. 'Twas November before Duquesne was reached. The Indians gathered there, seeing winter come on, had not waited to meet them; and the French by that time knew themselves in danger dan-ger of being cut off by the English operations op-erations in the north. When Forbes' forces, therefore, at last entered those fatal woods again, where Brad-dock's Brad-dock's slaughtered men had lain to rot, the French had withdrawn; nothing noth-ing remained but to enter the smoking smok-ing ruins of their abandoned fort, hoist the king's flag, and rename the post Fort Pitt; and Washington turned homeward again to seek the rest he so much needed. A Hazardous Feat. It had been almost a bloodless campaign, cam-paign, but such danger as It had brought Washington had shared to the utmost. The French had not taken themselves off without at least one trial of the English strength. While yet Forbes lay within the mountains moun-tains a large detachment had come from Duquesne to test and reconnoiter his force. Colonel Mercer of the Virginia Vir-ginia line, had been ordered forward with a party to meet them. ' He stayed so long, and the noise of the firing came back with so doubtful doubt-ful a meaning to the anxious ears at the camp, that Washington hastened with volunteers to his relief. In the dusk the two bodies of Englishmen met, mistook each other for enemies, exchanged a deadly fire, and were checked only because Washington rushed between their lines, even while their pieces blazed, cried his hot commands com-mands to stop, and struck up the smoking muzzles with his sword. Twas through no prudence of his that he was not shot. French Power Ends. For a long time his friends had felt a deep uneasiness about his health. They had very earnestly besought him not to attempt a new campaign. "You will in all probability bring on a relapse," re-lapse," George Mason had warned him, "and render yourself incapable of serving serv-ing the public at a time when there may be the utmost occasion. There is nothing more certain than that a gentleman of your station owes the care of his health and his life not only to himself and his friends, but to his country." But he had deemed the- nearest duty the most imperative; and It was only after that duty was disposed dis-posed of that he had turned from the field to seek home and new pleasures pleas-ures along with new duties. The winter win-ter brought news from Quebec of the fall of the French power in America, which made rest and home and pleasure pleas-ure the more grateful and full of rest. An Accidental Meeting. On a May day in 1758, as he spurred upon the way to Williamsburg, under orders from the frontier, Washington rod straight upon an adventure he had not looked for. He was within a few miles' ride of the little capital; old plantations lay close upon the way; neighborly homes began to multiply; and so striking a horseman riding uniformed and unattended, unat-tended, could not thereabouts go far unrecognized. He was waylaid and haled to dinner, despite excuses and protests of public business calling for dispatch. There was a charming woman to be seen at the house, his friend told him, if a good dinner was not argument enough and his business busi-ness could not spoil for an hour's stay In agreeable company. And so, of a sudden, under constraint of Virginian hospitality, he was hurried Into the presence of the gracious young matron who was at once, and as if of right, to make his heart safe against further I quest of adventure. Martha CuBtis was but six-and-twen-ty. To the charnof youth and beauty were added that touch of quiet sweetness sweet-ness and that winning grace of self-possession self-possession which come to a woman wived in her girlhood, and widowed before age or care has checked the first full tide of life. At seventeen she had married Daniel Parke Custls, & man more than twenty years her senior; for eight years of quiet love and duty as wife and mother had only made her youth the more gracious gra-cious in that rural land of leisure and good neighborhood; and a year's widowhood wid-owhood had been but a suitable preparation prepa-ration for perceiving the charm of this stately young soldier who now came riding her way upon the public business. A Willing Captive. His age was her own; all the land knew him and loved him for gallantry and brave capacity; he carried himself like a prince and he forgot his errand to linger In her company. Dinner was soon over, and his horses at the door; there was the drilled and dutiful Bishop, trained servant that he was, leading his restless and impatient im-patient charge back and forth within with-in sight of the windows and of the terrace where his young colonel tarried, tar-ried, absorbed and forgetful; man and beast alike had been in the service serv-ice of the unhappy Braddock, and might seem to walk there lively memories mem-ories of duty done and undertaken. But dusk came; the horses were put up; and the next morning was well advanced ad-vanced before the abstracted young officer got at last to his saddle, and spurred on belated to Williamsburg. His business concerned the preparations prepara-tions then afoot for General Forbes' advance upon Duquesne. "I came here at this critical juncture," said Washington Wash-ington to the president of the council, "by the express order of Sir John St. Clair, to represent in the fullest manner man-ner the posture of our affairs at Winchester" Win-chester" lack of clothes, arms, and equipage, lack of money, lack of wise regulations touching' rank and discipline. disci-pline. A Visit and a Pledge. General Forbes had been in Philadelphia Phila-delphia a. month already, awaiting the formation of his army in Virginia; Sir John St. Clair, his quartermaster-general, quartermaster-general, had come into the provinces to see that proper plans were made and executed; it was necessary that matters should be pressed forward very diligently and at once, and Washington, Wash-ington, when once at the seat of government, gov-ernment, was not slack to urge and superintend official action. But, the troublesome business once in proper course, he turned back to seek Mrs. Custis again, this time at her own home, ere he went to the long distance of the frontier. The onset was made with a soldier's promptness and audacity. He returned to his post, after a delay too slight to deserve any reasonable man's remark, and yet with a pledge given and taken which made' him look forward to the end of the campaign with a new longing as to the winning of a real home and an unwonted happiness. This was not Washington's first adventure ad-venture in love, but It was his last, and gave him a quiet joy which stood him in stead a whole lifetime. - No young Virginian could live twenty-six years amidst fair women In that hale and sociable colony without being touched again and again by the quick passion; and this man had the blood of a lover beyond his fellows. Despite the shyness of a raw lad who lived much in the open, he had relished the company of lively women from the first, meeting their gay sallies sal-lies sometimes with a look from his frank blue eyes that revealed more than he knew. Love had first found him out in earnest six years ago, when he was but just turned of twenty; and it had taken all the long while since to forget his repulse at the hands of a fair young beauty in that day of passion. An Earlier Love Affair. Mary Phillipse had but taken his fancy for a moment, because he could not pass such a woman by and deem himself still a true Virginian. It was more serious that he had been much in the company, these last years, of a fair neighbor of the vivacious house of Cary, whose wit and beauty had haunted him in the very thick of campaigns upon the frontier, and who still mastered his heart now and again, with a sort of imperious charm, in the midst of this very happy season sea-son when he knew Martha Custis his veritable heart's mistress for the future. fu-ture. It may well have made him glad of misadventures in the past to know his heart safe now. The campaign dragged painfully, far into the dread autumn. December had come before the captured post on the Ohio could be left to the keeping of Colonel Mercer and a little garrison garri-son of provincials. But when at last he was free again there was no rea-Bon rea-Bon why Washington should wait longer to be happy, and he was married mar-ried to Martha Custis on the 6th of January, 1759. A Brilliant Wedding. The sun shone very bright that day, and there was the fine glitter of gold, the brave show of resplendent uniforms, in the little church where the marriage was solemnized. Officers of his majesty's service crowded there, In their gold lace and scarlet coats, to see their comrade wedded; the new governor, Francis Fauquier, himself came, clad as befitted his rank; and the bridegroom took the sun not less gallantly than the rest, as he rode, in blue and silver and scarlet, beside the coach and six that bore his bride homeward amidst the thronging friends of the country-side. The young soldier's love of a gallant array and a becoming ceremony was satisfied to the full, and he must have rejoiced to be so brave a horseman on such a day. For three months of deep content he lived with his bride at her own residence, the White House, by York river side, where their troth had been plighted, forgetting the fatigues of the frontier, and learning gratefully the new life of quiet love and homely duty. T'iese peaceful, healing months gone by, he turned once more to pub-1 lie business. 1 Six months before his marriage he had been chosen a member of the house of burgesses for Frederick county the county which had been his scene of adventure In the old days of surveying in the wilderness, and in which ever since Braddock's fatal rout he had maintained his headquarters headquar-ters striving to keep the border against the savages. Leads the Poll. Small wonder that he led the poll taken there in Winchester, where through so many seasons men had seen Mm bear himself like a capable man and a gallant, indomitable soldier. sol-dier. 'Twas no' unwelcome duty, either, to take his young wife to Williamsburg in "the season," when all Virginia was in town in the persons per-sons of the burgesses and the country gentry come to enjoy the festivities and join in the business then sure to be afoot. The young soldier was unused to assemblies, however, . and suffered a keen embarrassment to find himself for a space too conspicuous amidst the novel parliamentary scene. He had hardly taken his seat when the gracious and stately Robinson, speaker speak-er of the house and treasurer of the colony these twenty years, rose, at the bidding of the burgesses, to thank him for the services of which all were speaking. Speechless With Emotion. This sudden praise, spoken with generous warmth there in a public place, was more than Washington knew how to meet. He got to his feet when Mr. Speaker was done, but he could not utter a syllable. He stood there, instead, hot with blushes, stammering, stam-mering, all a-tremble from head to foot. "Sit down, Mr. Washington," cried the speaker; "your modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses sur-passes the power of any language that I possess." Again and again, as the years passed, pass-ed, Washington returned at each session ses-sion to Williamsburg to take his place in the assembly; and with custom cus-tom came familiarity and the ease and firmness he at first had lacked upon the floor. His life broadened about him; all the uses of peace con- Martha Washington. tributed to give him facility and knowledge and a wide comradeship in affairs. Along with quiet days as a citizen, a neighbor, and a country gentleman, came maturity and the wise lessons of a various experience. Married a Fortune. No man in Virginia lived more or with a greater zest henceforth than Colonel Washington. His marriage brought him great increase of wealth, as well as increase of responsibility. Mr. Custis had left many thousand acres of land, and forty-five thousand pounds sterling in money, a substantial substan-tial fortune to the young wife and the two little children who survived him; and Washington had become, by special spe-cial decree of the governor and council in general court, trustee and manager of the whole. It needed capacity ca-pacity and knowledge and patience of no mean order to get good farming out of slaves, and profitable prices out of London merchants; to find prompt and trustworthy ship-masters by whom to send out cargoes, and induce in-duce correspondents over the sea to ship the perishable goods Bent in return re-turn by the right vessels, bound to the nearest river, and the bigger your estate the more difficult its proper prop-er conduct and economy, the more disastrous in scale the effects of mismanagement. mis-management. Tobacco a Potent Factor. No doubt the addition of Mrs. Custis' Cus-tis' handsome property to his own broad and fertile acres at Mount Vernon Ver-non made Colonel Washington one cf the wealthiest men In Virginia. But Virginian wealth was not to be counted count-ed till crops were harvested and got to market The current price of tobacco to-bacco might leave you with or without with-out a balance to your credit in London, Lon-don, your only clearing-house, as It chanced. Vnur principal purchases, too, must made over sea and through factors. Both what you sold and what you bought must take the hazards of the sea voyage, the whims of sea captains, the chances of a foreign for-eign market. To be farmer and merchant at once manage your own negroes and youf own overseers, and conduct an inter-; inter-; national correspendence; to keep th6 run of prices current, duties, port dues, and commission, and know the fluctuating fluct-uating rates of exchange; to under-, under-, stand and meet all changes, whether in merchants or in markets, three thousand miles away, required an amount of Information, an alertness, a steady attention to detail, a sagacity saga-city in farming and a shrewdness in trade, such as made a great property a burden to idle or inefficient men. Successful Business Man. But Washington took pains to succeed. suc-ceed. He had a great zest for business. busi-ness. The practical genius which had shown in him almost prematurely as a boy now grew heartily in him as a man of fortune. Messrs. Robert Cary & Co., his factors in London, must soon have learned to recognize his letters, in the mere handling, by their bulk. No detail escaped him when once he had gotten into the swing of the work. They must be as punctil-lious punctil-lious as he was, they found, in seeing to every part of the trade and accounting ac-counting with which he intrusted them, or else look to lose his lucrative lucra-tive patronage. He was not many years in learning how to make the best tobacco in Virginia, Vir-ginia, and to get iyrecognized as such in England. Barrels of flour marked "George Washington, Mount Vernon," were ere long suffered to pass the inspectors in-spectors at the ports of the British West Indies without scrutiny. It was worth while to serve so efficient a man to his satisfaction; worth while or not, he would not be served otherwise. other-wise. Washington had emerged, as It were, after a tense and troubled youth, upon a peaceful tract of time, where his powers could stretch and form themselves without strain or hurry. He had robust health, to which he gave leave in unstinted work, athletic strength, and an an insatiable relish for being much afoot and in the open, which he satisfied with early rounds of superintendence in the fields where the men were at their tasks, with many a tireless ride after the hounds, or steadfast wait at the haunts of the deer; a planning will that craved some practical achievement every day, which he indulged by finding tasks of betterment about the estate and keeping keep-ing his men at them with unflaeelne discipline; a huge capacity for being useful and for understanding how to be so, which he suffered his neighbors, neigh-bors, his parish, his county, the colony col-ony itself, to employ when there was need. A Competent All-Round Man. To a young man, bred these ten years in the forests and in the struggle strug-gle of warfare upon a far frontier, it had been intolerable to live tamely, without executive tasks big and various vari-ous enough to keep his energy from rust. The clerical side of business he had learned very thoroughly in camp, as well as the exceeding stir and strain of individual effort the incessant inces-sant letter writing necessary to keep promised performance afoot, the reckoning reck-oning of men and of stores, the nice calculations of time and ways and means; the scrutiny of individual men, too, which is so critical a part of management, and the slow organization organi-zation of effort. He had been in a fine school for these things all his youth, and would have thought shame to himself not to have learned temperance, tem-perance, sagacity, thrift, and patience wherewith to use his energy. A Model Family Man. His happy marriage did him the service to keep him from restlessness. His love took his allegiance, and held him to his home as to a post of honor and reward. He had never before had leave to be tender with children, or show with what a devotion he could preside over a household all his own. His home got strong hold upon him. His estates gave him scope ot command and a life of action. 'Twas no wonder he kept his factors fac-tors Susy, and shipped goods authenticated authenti-cated by the brand. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |